What Happened to Michelle Williams After Destiny's Child Broke Up?

Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child fame is every bit the “Survivor” she said she was in their 2001 hit song. Unbeknownst to us all, she was suffering in private as she and fellow DC members Kelly Rowland and Beyoncé hit the big time. But now her life seems to have made a full 180! What happened to Michelle Williams in the years since Destiny’s Child split? Read more below…

Professionally, Michelle is doing great: She has released four solo albums so far (and says new music is on the way), she’s starred in Chicago and Aida on Broadway, and she has even started her own home decor line called Believe.

And her personal life seems pretty perfect now, too. She’s been dating NFL chaplain Chad Johnson since last summer, and she and he have even been hanging out with Queen Bey.

“I’m totally able to be myself,” she said of her relationship with Chad in a Refinery29 interview. “I can be goofy and I don’t have to have on makeup — although I kind of have to keep it cute — but I can be myself. I think that’s the main thing for those of us who are always ‘on.’ Can you come home and just be yourself? Do you have to be on 100 or can you just curl up and watch This Is Us or Judge Judy? Can you just go out to dinner without feeling like you have to be on, and they respect that?”

It all represents a dramatic recovery from the depression she faced when she was younger, a dark time she described this October on The Talk. “At the age of 25, had I had a name to what I was feeling at the time, I would have disclosed that I’ve been suffering from depression,” she told the co-hosts of the talk show. “I didn't know until I was in my 30s what was going on. I just thought it was growing pains. I just thought, ‘I’m turning into a woman.’ So I’ve been suffering since the age of between 13 and 15.”

Their manager — Matthew Knowles, Beyoncé’s father — dismissed Michelle’s concerns, she added. “When I disclosed it to our manager at the time, bless his heart, he was like, ‘You all just signed a multi-million dollar deal. You’re about to go on tour. What do you have to be depressed about?’” she recalled. “So I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m just tired.’ … I think he wanted me to be grateful, which I was, but I was still sad … to the point where I was suicidal.”

Thank goodness she made it through those tumultuous years. Clearly she had a lot to look forward to!